Pickguard and Covers

2013-11-13

Aluminum stock

In this design, I needed to have a big cover plate, to cover up the large routings from the previous phase. I would have liked more colored wood facing the front, but the cyborg look is not too bad.

I had a nice piece of aluminum to use for the main cover/pickguard. In the photo I have scratched the outline of the cover into the material. I made the cuts from the back to protect the face of the material.

I cut the material to rough size using a jig saw, and then carefully filed it down to the precise size.

Test fit the cover plates

I wanted the metal covers to exactly match the wood. The way to achieve this was to cut the covers a little large, attach them, and file them back until they touch the wood. Then do the final filing across the metal and wood at the same time.

In this photo you can see that the main pickguard is a little long on the curved edge.

The main pickguard has a bend in it, so that it follows the shape of the body.

Test fit the cover plates

Here you can see that there are three covers used on the front. There is the main pickguard cover plate. Then two smaller plates that cover the unnecessary routings from the previous phases.

File the cover plates to match the wood

In order to get a tight fit between the metal and the wood, I had to work back and forth between the two. Here I have attached the cover plates in their final positions, and am filing away material from both the wood and metal at the same time.

After shaping cover plate edges

This photo shows test-fitting the bridge, so that I can get a centerline for marking the pickup holes.

Holes For Pickups

Cutting openings for electronics

In this photo I am in the process of making the cutouts for the pickups. My original plan was to have the pickup holes have rounded edges which closely followed the shapes of the pickups. That’s why I’m drilling four holes for each pickups, to get those nicely rounded corners.

Drilling the cover plate

Drilling for the pickups

Here you can see the pattern of the holes and how the pickups are laid out.

A lot of these